Your Body Odor Changes As You Get Older In These 7 Ways

Even if you're well past puberty, your body odor can keep changing and surprising you all throughout adulthood. It's just one of those great benefits of growing up. In fact, the way your body odor changes as you get older can get a bit surprising and strange. That signature scent just continues to evolve over time for most people, it seems.

To be clear, though, some amount of body odor is totally normal and expected. Also known as bromhidrosis, body odor is a totally natural part of being a human, as noted in Very Well Health. Although a person's lifestyle habits and medical history can affect this scent, part of it is just determined by genetics, as further explained in Very Well Health. People aren't meant to be totally scent-free all the time, and some amount of body odor isn't even within your control.

Along those lines, there are some specific ways that body odor can change as a person goes through the aging process. A lot of it is just determined by the natural ways the body reacts to different compounds, hormones, or even minerals, so it's not entirely within an individual's control. So read on to learn about the subtle (and more overt) ways your BO can change over time.

2They Get Pretty Foul

If your armpits seem more foul-smelling lately, to the point where deodorant is no longer getting the job done, then consider your diet. As it turns out, a lack of minerals such as magnesium can also lead to particularly rank body odors, as Lebofsky explains. "The mineral magnesium helps in ‘deodorizing’ our internal organs and also helps with our body odor," said cardiologist Robert Segal, M.D. in Reader's Digest. To boost the magnesium content of your diet, eat more dark chocolate, avocados, and bananas, according to Healthline.

3They Get Rank

4They May Become More Sweet-Smelling

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Certain medical conditions can also cause changes to a person's body odor, says Lebofsky. For example, sweet, almost fruity-smelling breath can be related to diabetes complications, according to Men's Health. This is the sort of body odor that's definitely worth mentioning to your doctor.

5They Smell Like What You Eat & Drink

As you settle into lifelong eating and drinking patterns, your own aroma will naturally reflect whatever gets put into your body. Anything from broccoli to beer can affect your body odor, according to Berkeley Wellness. Whatever you habitually consume will have an impact on your baseline body odor.

6They Get Strong & Sour

The many stresses of adulthood may cause temporary but noticeable changes to your body odor. When you're anxious or stressed, the body releases protein-rich sweat from the apocrine glands, which can combine with bacteria to produce an especially noticeable odor, as Hooman Khorasani, M.D. explained in Women's Health.

7They Get Sweeter & Distinct

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The distinct aging odor (which is referred to as kareishu in Japanese) exists for a reason, explains Caleb Backe, certified health & wellness expert for Maple Holistics. It's possibly associated with an increase of the compound 2-nonenal as a person ages. A compound also found in aged beer, 2-nonenal may be a part of the age-related changes in a person' body odor, according to the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. Although still under investigation, this may be one of the reasons older adults can produce a distinctive body odor. (You may associate this scent with a nursing home, for instance.)

Whatever the case, most people will find that their individual scent keeps changing over time. Basically, your body odor keeps getting more distinct, or even refined, with age.